American novelist and poet (1889-1973)
We were all born of flesh, in a flare of pain. We do not remember the red roots whence we rose, but we know that we rose and walked, that after a while we shall lie down again.
CONRAD AIKEN
The House of Dust
It is precisely the sort of thing I am always trying to do in my writing -- to present my unhappy reader with a wide-ranged chaos -- of actions and reactions, thoughts, memories and feelings -- in the vain hope that at the end he will see that the whole thing represents only one moment, one feeling, one person. A raging, trumpeting jungle of associations, and then I announce at the end of it, with a gesture of despair, "This is I!"
CONRAD AIKEN
Blue Voyage
I compelled myself all through to write an exercise in verse, in a different form, every day of the year. I turned out my page every day, of some sort--I mean I didn't give a damn about the meaning, I just wanted to master the form--all the way from free verse, Walt Whitman, to the most elaborate of villanelles and ballad forms. Very good training. I've always told everybody who has ever come to me that I thought that was the first thing to do.
CONRAD AIKEN
interview, The Paris Review, winter-spring 1968
And the shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves interlace with low voices and footsteps and sunlight to divide us forever.
CONRAD AIKEN
Chance Meetings